Capone

The mob-style rub-out of Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel 50 years ago today at the Beverly Hills mansion of his street-wise, auburn-haired mistress has endured as one of Los Angeles' most romanticized murder mysteries.

Eliot Ness, the headstrong tax cop who sent Al Capone to Alcatraz, is making a comeback, this time on the big screen. Ness, and his incorruptible team of investigators, will be busting Big Al, Frank Nitti and other Prohibition-era vermin in a feature version of "The Untouchables" at a theater near you, perhaps as early as Christmas, 1986.

September 13, 2013 | By Robert Lloyd, Los Angeles Times Television Critic

The Fall Season is here, people. And though premieres will happen up and down what is still anachronistically called a dial, the season remains mainly the domain of the broadcast networks - which seem bent for the moment not on aping cable TV, as many think they should, but rather distinguishing themselves from it. By getting classic. Which is not necessarily to say good - though not necessarily to say bad, either. FOR THE RECORD: Fall TV preview: A capsule description of the new DirecTV drama "Full Circle" in the Sept.

Romantics will think about hearts and flowers on Valentine's Day, but others might recall something a little less heartwarming: the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. The man allegedly behind the machine guns was Al Capone. The mobster was also allegedly the man behind the wrought-iron "C" on the chimney of a Fontana house, a 1920s winter residence used by an unnamed Chicago snowbird and the feature of a six-house historic homes tour on Sunday.

A bid to give landmark status to the home of gangster Al Capone has been rejected by a local review panel after pleas from Italian-American organizations. The 3-0 panel vote Thursday is expected to be appealed by groups seeking to place Capone's home on the National Register of Historic Places.

The admission sheet checking Al Capone into a Pennsylvania prison sold for $6,875 at an auction of memorabilia of the famous and infamous. The admission sheet, signed "Alphonse Capone," was bought Thursday by a Pennsylvania collector, said Herman Darvick, owner of the Herman Darvick Autograph Auctions. On it, the gangster is listed as "Alphonsus Capone alias Al Brown alias Scarface," Darvick said.

The admission sheet checking Al Capone into a Pennsylvania prison sold for $6,875 at an auction of memorabilia of the famous and infamous. The admission sheet, signed "Alphonse Capone," was bought Thursday by a Pennsylvania collector, said Herman Darvick, owner of the Herman Darvick Autograph Auctions. On it, the gangster is listed as "Alphonsus Capone alias Al Brown alias Scarface," Darvick said.

A real estate developer is getting some help from the Feds in his quest to transform Al Capone's former headquarters, once an opulent palace of sin, into a respectable hotel for business travelers. The Lexington Hotel, on Chicago's Near South Side, was the posh Prohibition Era haven from which Capone ruled his criminal empire in the late 1920s and early '30s, before he was sent to federal prison on an income tax evasion charge.

Aug. 21, 1934: The "Al Capone special," a heavily guarded prison train, passed through Los Angeles on its way to delivering its most infamous passenger to Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay. Additional security officers were aboard the train as it moved slowly across the city about 6:15 p.m. to the Southern Pacific yards opposite San Fernando Road. Despite efforts to keep the train's movements secret, several hundred people showed up at the rail yards to await its arrival, The Times reported.

The Enabler has been fixating on love. What is it? How to find it? What feeds it? The answer to this last question, she is quite certain, is whiskey. Which is why on a recent evening she found herself contemplatively sipping a glass of 127-proof Four Roses cask strength single barrel bourbon at Pasadena's new whiskey bar, the Blind Donkey. The Blind Donkey is the work of the beer-minded men behind Verdugo Bar, the Surly Goat and the Little Bear, and as such it exudes a pleasing masculinity.

Isabelle Huppert, surely the most formidable French screen actress of her generation, is attracted to playing women so driven that they sometimes, as in Michael Haneke's masterful "The Piano Teacher," succumb to madness. In "Hidden Love," director Alessandro Capone's adaptation of Daniele Girard's novel, Huppert's heroine, Danielle, has just failed in a suicide attempt and ends up institutionalized and in the care of psychiatrist Dr. Dubois (Greta Scacchi), who attempts to break through to her mute patient.

As freezing weather descended on the Midwest last week, the New York Times characterized Chicago as "a city that shrugs at snow. " That may well be, but in December 1927, during another frigid period, one Chicagoan said "enough. " Al Capone, the 28-year-old kingpin of bootlegging, decided to take a vacation in a balmy burg he had never visited: Los Angeles. Sounding like an unappreciated public servant, he told reporters before leaving, "Let the worthy citizens of Chicago get their liquor the best way they can. I'm sick of the job. " He complained about his image.

Chicago police agreed Tuesday to take a look at the 70-year-old unsolved slaying of Edward J. O'Hare, a lawyer who may have cooperated with federal authorities against Al Capone. The unusual request came from Chicago politician Edward Burke in advance of the release of a book on the infamous mobster. Burke said his intention was simply to set the record straight that it wasn't Eliot Ness who brought Capone to justice. Without O'Hare's cooperation, Burke said, "there never would have been a case against Capone."

He never sang to the feds, but it turns out Al Capone had a song in his heart. All it took was a stint in Alcatraz to bring it out. Now, more than 70 years later, the tender love song that the ruthless crime boss penned while sitting in the pen is being recorded and released on CD. And an inscribed copy of the music and lyrics to "Madonna Mia" is up for sale at $65,000. "It's a beautiful song, a tear-jerker," said Rich Larsen of Caponefanclub.com. For the last eight months or so, Larsen and a producer have been recording the song, with two singers backed by a mandolin, accordion, violin, piano and stand-up bass.

Aug. 21, 1934: The "Al Capone special," a heavily guarded prison train, passed through Los Angeles on its way to delivering its most infamous passenger to Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay. Additional security officers were aboard the train as it moved slowly across the city about 6:15 p.m. to the Southern Pacific yards opposite San Fernando Road. Despite efforts to keep the train's movements secret, several hundred people showed up at the rail yards to await its arrival, The Times reported.

--The late Mayor Richard J. Daley didn't care to keep around reminders of Chicago's infamous 1920s gangsters, obscuring the site of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre and demolishing the Metropole Hotel from which Al Capone ruled from 1925 to 1928. But a city official wants to make at least one Capone hangout untouchable, proposing that Capone's longtime South Side home be nominated for the National Register of Historic Places.

He never sang to the feds, but it turns out Al Capone had a song in his heart. All it took was a stint in Alcatraz to bring it out. Now, more than 70 years later, the tender love song that the ruthless crime boss penned while sitting in the pen is being recorded and released on CD. And an inscribed copy of the music and lyrics to "Madonna Mia" is up for sale at $65,000. "It's a beautiful song, a tear-jerker," said Rich Larsen of Caponefanclub.com. For the last eight months or so, Larsen and a producer have been recording the song, with two singers backed by a mandolin, accordion, violin, piano and stand-up bass.

Brazilian music producer Tom Capone, nominated this year for five Latin Grammys, died in a motorcycle crash just hours after being shut out at the Latin Recording Academy awards show, officials said Friday. Capone, 38, was pronounced dead at 3:25 a.m. Thursday after his rented motorcycle and a small sedan collided at Tyrone Avenue and Ventura Boulevard in Sherman Oaks, police said. Capone was thrown from the motorcycle. The 23-year-old woman driving the car was unhurt.

The former town president of Cicero, the infamous Chicago suburb where Al Capone once fled for protection from the law, was sentenced to more than eight years in prison Thursday for her role in a racketeering conspiracy that bilked the community of $12 million. Betty Loren-Maltese, a flamboyant 53-year-old known for her quirky politics, heavy makeup and substantial hairdos, was also ordered to make restitution of more than $8 million and was fined $100,000.